Michael Essien has been at the heart of the Ghana national team since he first joined the youth program in 1999 but the Black Stars will have to find a way to win without the influential midfielder when the World Cup kicks off in South Africa.
By Akyereko-Frimpong Manson
Michael Essien has been at the heart of the Ghana national team since he first joined the youth program in 1999. The midfielder helped the Black Stars to the bronze medal at the 1999 FIFA U-17 Championship in New Zealand were runners up to Argentina at the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship.
At the African nation’s first World Cup appearance in 2006, Essien was influential in the center of the field along with team captain Stephen Appiah helping the team advance along with Italy to the second round.
But Essien was suspended for the Round of 16 match against Brazil and Ghana was quickly dismantled by the Samba Kings 3-0. And while 4-years have past since that loss, Essien has been critical for Ghana and the questions still remain on whether it will be possible to replace him.
Essien, an influential player for the West African giants was ruled out of the tournament when both doctors from his national team and Chelsea confirmed that he would not be able to recover before July.
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This indeed spells a big blow for the West African who have some core members of their squad struggling to recover from various degrees of injury; Sunderland’s Olympique Lyon loanee John Mensah is suffering from a recurrent back problems while Udinese combative youngster Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu also lost the battle against a knee injury he suffered in Le Zebrette’s penultimate match in the Serie A.
Although the Black Stars reached the grand finale in Angola in January without Essien, the challenge is much more difficult at the World Cup leading to many headaches for Milovan Rajevac without Essien.
This indeed has dealt a big blow to Milovan Rajevac who has explained that he will have to change his whole tactical formation for the tournament. With a player like Essien missing from his team, there has been a big hole in the entire team and he needs to change his tactics and assign unconventional roles to Getafe’s Derek Owusu-Boateng and Anthony Annan.
The game against the Netherlands left the Serb gaffer with more questions than answer. It is now clear that Essien’s absence in the Ghana’s squad is going to have a telling effect on the performance of the Black Stars. Derek Boateng in the game was disappointing. The former Beitar Jerusalem playmaker who joined Getafe at the beginning of last season from German side FC Koln won the club’s fans player of the season playing in a deep midfield role and from his days with the U-20 team that won silver in the world Youth Championship in Argentina in 2001, he has always been played as an orthodox attacking midfielder. He was to compensate for Essien’s role in midfield but failed to deliver. This has added to the headache of Milovan as he has to find another player to do the damage in midfield in South Africa. Even against Latvia in the second half, Derek’s performance was unsatisfactory for most of Ghana’s soccer fans. According to Milovan, Kevin-Prince Boateng still needed time to adapt to his tactics and the Ghanaian style of play. And this was quiet evident in the 67 minutes he lasted on the pitch against Latvia. Kevin did averagely well but most definitely below the expectation of Milovan Rajevac.
The unconventional 4-2-3-1diamond formation has received huge criticisms from sports analysts and soccer fans in the country. They find it difficult to understand the tactics; declaring it as unwelcoming.
Anthony Annan, Andre Ayew, Kwadwo Asamoah and Samuel Inkoom proved that they can play more aggressively to aid Milovan’s course. But certainly he needs a player of Essien’s caliber to beef up his midfield. Essien can play in all various positions in midfield and even sometimes in defence. Jose Mourinho in his days at Chelsea switched the former Lyon man round; even sometimes playing lateral defence. His speed, creativity, tactical discipline, team work, and even in difficult moments, his ability to carry the game on his shoulders is a great miss to the Ghanaians.
Essien is among the top five midfielders on the planet if not the best in his position and would be a threat to any opposition on any day. The Serbs, the Germans, and the Australians can now breathe a sigh of relief now that Mr. Essien is out of the world. But certainly, there is not point trying to underestimate the potentials of the West African giants.
Source: Soccer365.com
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